Members of the City Council had asking the planning commission to draft an ordinance that would ban businesses from staying open around the clock. The commission voted 6-3 to table the proposal on Monday night.

A study conducted by the city's law firm, Olson and Olson, revealed that no other municipalities in the Houston area have adopted such an ordinance.

However, Trey Hoffman, chairman of the commission, said that the city likely has enough ordinances are place to prevent a 24-hour business from opening.

Mike Andrews, a member of the commission, agreed that current ordinances should be able to stop a 24-hour business.

"I think we kind of shoot ourselves in the foot with a blanket ordinance like that," he said. "I think the system worked in regard to Wal-Mart, and that is we did not want a 24-hour warehouse that was 210,000 square feet in the city."

Commission member David Dominy was adamant about allowing existing ordinances -- such as noise and lighting standards -- to be the mechanism by which the city could control a business from operating on a continuous basis.

"I think the facilities are in place to enforce what we need to enforce," he said. "And if specifics come up about redevelopment in the Planned Area Development, which is what we are obviously talking about, that is the way to address it. I think it is overly broad to shut out retail- or restaurant-type businesses with this one ordinance."

Among those dissenting was commission member Tom Rusnak, who wanted to ban 24-hour retail stores but not restrict 24-hour commercial businesses or restaurants.

"I agree with what you are saying," he told his counterparts, "but I think it would be unfair to an applicant to go through the process and get that far along and then be told we won't allow 24-hour businesses. Why don't we just be up front before they ever put in their application? We need a blanket ordinance that says no 24-hour retail businesses."

Hoffman was not convinced.

"There are no communities in the Houston area I am aware of that have come out with a ban against 24-hour businesses," he said. "Furthermore, we have one 24-business operating in the city (a fitness club), and we have had no complaints that I am aware of filed against them.

"I know that there were some scares and concerns over the Wal-Mart issue. But the Wal-Mart process went through our system, and the system worked. But that is not to say some of our ordinances don't need beefing up -- especially our noise ordinance."

In other business, the commission tabled a request by the City Council regarding the drafting of a zoning ordinance to allow residential development along Interstate 10.